become inextricably wed to his own hand. Letters that were used over half
a century ago are revived not simply for the sake of pastiche but rather to
express his own aesthetically playful urges.
Swarte’s is a seamless weave of both moderneand comic influences.
His work is multidimensional and relies on letterforms to complement his
narrative drawings. Regarding the latter, the influence of the simple
linearity of the cartoon character Tintin by the Belgian artist Hergé is most
apparent. “In the beginning I drew in Hergé’s style to study how he did it
and I found it suited me well because I could draw so many details in
architecture and objects,” explains Swarte, with a nod to his passion for
buildings and ephemeral design objects. Swarte coined the term “clear line”
to describe Hergé’s approach and his own. Yet he is quick to affirm that the
line alone is only a means to achieve an end.
Swarte uses lettering and line drawing like personal speech. His
singular vision emerges through a combination of dramatic, witty, and
absurd comic images within a total narrative. As a designer, he enjoys
artifacts of the past, but as storyteller he starts from zero. And where he
diverges from his main influence is clear in this statement: “Hergé tries to
take the reader to the real world, I take the reader into myworld.”
The galaxies for Swarte’s world are comic strips, children’s books,
record covers, posters, wine labels, shopping bags, ex libris, magazine
covers, postage stamps for the PTT (the Dutch postal service), and
architectural interiors. He has published his own comics magazines
including Tante Leny(Aunt Leny), andVrij Nederland(Free Netherlands);
in addition, he served as a contributor to Submarine(a Belgian
counterculture journal),Charlie(a French humor paper),Humo(the Belgian
TV and radio guide), the Dutch comics magazine Jippo,and RAW,through
which he was introduced to the American public. Whether a publication
contains an exclusive collection of his work or the occasional contribution,
there is no mistaking a “Swarte” for the work of any other artist. Style
combined with conceptual mastery are his virtues.
Swarte’s style is ultimately secondary to the tales he tells. Six
stories originally published in Charlie,for example, are collected in the 1979
book Modern Art,of which the title story is a satire on the nature of style
and art. It stars Anton Makassar, one of Swarte’s cartoon alter egos about
whom Swarte says: “As always with comics, you invent your character out
of your character so that parts of yourself come out of a character in
extremo.” Another Swarte stand-in is the character Jopo de Pojo (he chose
the name because it sounded so pleasing), who reflects Swarte’s shy and
isolated side, while Makassar (named after the city in Indonesia) suggests
the artist’s self-proclaimed professorial side. “He is a bit of an inventor. He
tuis.
(Tuis.)
#1